During peak winter season, the Delta cuts nearly 20% of its flights in New York
New York’s largest airline will hibernate in the winter.
In one of the slowest winters, Delta cuts flights by nearly 20% from two hubs in New York City. The Delta plans to evacuate 16% and 19% from John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) and LaGuardia Airport (LGA) in January and February, respectively.
Other winters will also see some major pullbacks, including the number of scheduled flights in November, December, March and April has dropped by about 10%.
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Delta said it will remove approximately 50 peak day trips per month in November, the first half of December and November from March to October 2026. In the deep winter, this number jumped to 75 peak trips, which Delta defined as January and February.
The good news is that the airline is not cutting any routes in New York (at this time). Every route that schedules winter will continue to operate.
Instead, the airline is significantly reducing the number of frequencies flying on a given route in winter. For example, the route from LGA to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina; Wilmington, North Carolina; Des Moines, Iowa will be conducted every day from daily daily.
Asked about the layoffs, a Delta spokesman explained: “Delta is making a selection adjustment to our Laguardia (LGA) (LGA) and John F. Kennedy (JFK) airports before the FAA extends NYC Slot utilization. For all affected travelers.”
When Delta initially set up a winter schedule, it seemed to run under the assumption that it needs to operate every slot machine it has or can access.
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This is because slot or takeoff and landing permissions usually include provisions for use or rejection. If Delta doesn’t drive all slot machines in its portfolio, some people may return to the free market to acquire potential acquisitions from their competitors.
As you might expect, losing valuable slot machines in New York City isn’t the agenda of any web planner – so much that the largest airline has some employees whose only job is to monitor slot machines’ usage – so Delta initially planned to fully utilize its entire slot machine combo this winter.
However, the FAA extends the exemption’s utilization waiver until the summer of 2026, which actually means that airlines can keep their slots at New York City’s capacity-constrained airports even if they don’t use all of them.
In one environment, airline CEOs and business teams say demand, especially domestic demand at off-peak times, is not as strong as they would have hoped, but Delta can cut potentially unprofitable flights without worrying about losing its more valuable long-term seat.
Unfortunately, in this case, travelers usually lose. That’s because airlines have less flight frequency chosen and with less competition, airlines enjoy greater pricing power in the market.
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